Queerer Things
by Enkay
Summary: Takeru's his high school's golden boy, known and loved by everyone. Daisuke's lucky to talk to anyone who doesn't want to get into his pants. This is the story of their falling in love, and out, and in again. In what precise order is up to interpretation.
1. Chapter 1

Obligatory Author's Rant: This is SUPREMELY out-of-character. I'm aware of that. It's pretty much supposed to be. I basically wanted to write about Takeru being an ass and Daisuke being a two-cent uke gutterslut, so I did. This is one of those stories that's either really well-written or really terrible; I honestly can't tell. Maybe one of y'all could enlighten me. I'm going to keep writing it regardless (probs). It was also obviously intended as a rewrite of my semi-Daikeru oneshot "Altogether," but it turned into so much more than that (a.k.a. a gayfest), so I expanded it and… whatnot. It's a completely different story, anyway; if Hikari shows up in this one she'll be just as skewed as the boys (probably in the bitch direction) and it'll be fun. :D … And I think that's it. Enjoy this pile of crap; I had fun writing it.

**QUEERER THINGS**

**Part One**

The linoleum floor is cold and grimy beneath my hands, layered with years upon years of sweat and dust and secrets cried in tears. There is a rip in the fabric of my sleeve and I don't remember where I got it from—my head buzzes with the effort as I try to induce some sort of thought process. My mouth is pasty and foul-tasting and my forehead, as I brush the back of my hand across it, does feel a little warm—but then again, my hands feel very, very cold. With a flutter of my eyelids the room tips on its side; I find that my hand has clamped over my mouth in an attempt to prevent the lurch that is growing in my stomach from going any farther.

_Fuck him._

I try to imagine what I look like right now—this short, dark-skinned kid with disheveled hair and a semi-mutilated uniform collapsed in the corner of the dirtiest, most neglected bathroom in the school—but my dry musings are interrupted by the creak of the door as it opens. I am half on my feet already despite the dizziness that the sudden movement has prompted, just in case I need to dive into one of the empty stalls for cover—in case by some inexplicable twist of fate it's _him_—but no, it's just some kid. I relax, trying to look like I belong here (right—because hanging out in grimy old bathrooms is normal), but—of course—he's already noticed me and is making his way over here.

Shit.

"You're… um… Motomiya, right?" He's standing over me now, looking at me with a nervous curiosity. I meet his gaze, trying not to feel intimidated, but it's kind of hard—this kid isn't overly big, but he looks pretty muscular—like he works out a lot—and I… well, I was a pretty serious athlete in middle school, sure, but this kid looks like he could break me in half if he wanted to. "Motomiya Daisuke?"

My lips glued together, I nod mutely; I feel like I should get up, if just to make a break for the door—being boxed in like this is making me nervous—but I can't seem to move. The kid watches me for a few seconds more, probably weighing my reputation with my less-than-stable position at the moment, then lets his breath out in a whoosh and kneels beside me. I find it easier to focus on the concern in his eyes now that the muscles bulging under his shirt are presented as less of a threat. "You okay?"

I nod again, more slowly this time, being careful not to break eye contact. I can see what he's thinking—I've seen it a million times before. The tense hunch in his shoulders, the evidence of perspiration on his face despite the fact that it's anything but warm—he can't be in here with me, _shouldn't _be in here with me, but he is nonetheless. He's obviously heard of me, has wondered—it's only normal, isn't it? And why shouldn't I give the man what he wants?

_This will be good for you_, my inner self justifies. _Give you something to do._ A distraction. _Besides, if you turn this kid down you'll just end up sitting here and jerking off while you think about _him_ and…_

I tweak my face into a mask of gentle concern and brush my fingers past his cheek, entangling them in the short dark hairs at the back of his neck before he can think about moving away. He doesn't, even if his eyes widen considerably as I make contact. There is a dusting of color across his cheeks. "You look tired," I murmur.

"Yeah… well," he says, his voice quivering noticeably as he clutches at his pant legs. "You know… been working out."

Amazing. He's still bragging about his numerous talents even when the audience consists of some weirdo faggot with a reputation trying to get into his pants. This guy's a true jock. But then again, he hasn't blinked once since I reached out and touched him; you know you have them when they hold your gaze as if under a trance. I love that feeling. "N-Nothing I can't handle…"

I smile indulgently and pressure the back of his neck, guiding his face towards mine; he leans forward without a second's hesitation, his blush deepening to a steady crimson as his eyelids lower and his lips part in anticipation. My own twitch into a grin; it's hardly attractive, I know, but it's been a while since I've had one this willing. And jocks are my favorite; their single-mindedness is amusing, yeah, and they tend to have great bodies, but the novelty is what I enjoy the most. Jocks aren't supposed to be gay—jocks are supposed to smile big and flex their muscles and score as many touchdowns or baskets or whatever the fuck else as they can to welcome the success. I wonder (as his tongue slides into my mouth and I finger the buttons on his shirt) what I would have done in this situation were I the same kid I was a couple of years ago; I was always the jock in our little clique back in middle school. Ken played soccer like I did, but he was smart, too—Ken could do anything. Iori (I hiss into his mouth as his cold fingertips brush against the heated skin under my shirt) could have been called an athlete, I guess, if you can call kendo a sport nowadays—I know he's on the team at my old middle school. That's all I know about him now, unfortunately—haven't seen him in months. It's a little sad how we all grew apart like this—especially when Taichi and Yamato and Koushirou and all the rest of them (he undoes my pants with a deft twist of his fingers and I gently take them in my own; fucking meathead has no head for foreplay) are still so close after all these years. I guess the six of us didn't go through as much shit as they did together—we were never _stuck_ in the Digital World, after all. We didn't have whole chunks cut out of our lives by that time inconsistency shit.

And unlike Taichi and Yamato, Takeru and I never—

I bite down on his tongue, hard; he moans like a goddamn whore into my mouth and pulls me tighter against him, eliminating the space between us. What is this kid, a fucking masochist? He's definitely gay, whatever he is; usually when I manage to get my hands on a jock in some unused classroom or behind the bleachers or, God forbid, in the back of his parents' fucking Lexus, it's always rushed and clumsy, with the moron practically chewing my lips off in his need to prove to himself that he's not gay. But this kid—he's totally out of it right now, drinking my body in through touches and caresses and deep, slow kisses. It's making me feel something strangely akin to guilt—this is the kind of kid who'll go off to college and find the perfect man to settle down and adopt malnourished babies with. And that's not me. It never would have been me, even if all that shit the summer before we entered high school never happened; I probably would have gone through the years just like this kid, a star soccer player with a knockout girlfriend and a Polaroid smile, and there wouldn't even be some slut in a dirty bathroom to make me realize all my weird urges and terrifying dreams were anything but just that—

He comes up for air, our lips parting with a wordless murmur from his end; he leans in to kiss me again but I cover his lips with two of my fingers, shaking my head with the smallest of movements. His eyes are heartbreaking—and I'm sure he'll have to miss even more of whatever team practice he has right now to find another bathroom and take care of the little problem that I've opted to neglect—but I can't do this right now, not to him and not when he's the furthest thing from my mind. I get to my feet slowly—I'm not even the slightest bit hard.

I've gotten too fucking used to this.

He gets up as well, wincing slightly as he does so (I do the gentlemanly thing and keep my eyes on the floor). He's standing much too close to me. "Do you usually hang out in grody old bathrooms after school like this?"

My shoulders tense unconsciously—he can't want me like this. He can't misunderstand. "No. I wasn't feeling well."

There is a pause, and he decides to get straight to the point. "When can I see you again?"

I sigh and run a hand through my hair. Fuck. "You can't."

"Why the hell not?"

His voice is more desperate than angry—I wish he would just yell at me. Beat the shit out of me. It would be easier. "… I'm not… I'm not someone you want to associate with. Someone will find out, and… you don't want that. Seriously." Before he can express the indignance that's rolling off of him in waves—this kid wears his emotions on his fucking sleeve—I hold out my hand to stop him, still scowling at the grimy linoleum. Room needs a fucking janitor. "Don't try to say that it's not true or that it won't happen or… whatever; that's not the way shit works." I run a hand through my hair again, glancing upon my forehead as I do so. Fuck. Fuck, I'm definitely running a fever. "You need someone who… deserves you."

He's quiet for a moment, so quiet that I can hear the buzzing of the cheap fluorescent lights over our heads. Finally there is a rush of air as he lets out a sigh and steps away from me. A bitter smile creeps over my lips as he does so. _Good boy._ "… Well… are you sure you're gonna be all right, though? Because you looked kinda sick when I came in…"

"I'll be fine," I say as cheerfully as I can. My stomach lurches and I try not to lean against the wall. "Thanks for caring. But really… you should go."

"Yeah," he says, almost to himself. He still hasn't moved. My conviction not to look at him is wavering; he's too sweet. Too kind to some slutty faggot with a heart of fucking gold he's just met in a bathroom after school. He reminds me of… of him. Before he became a goddamn motherfucking asshole, of course. Would it really be so bad for me to take someone like him for myself? I deserve _something_, don't I?

Don't I?

Just as my gaze begins to edge its way towards his face the door gives a warning creak and he practically leaps backwards—an automatic response, sure, but it still manages to widen the black hole festering in my chest. He's flustered, running one hand through his hair (slightly disheveled) as the other adjusts his gym shirt to better cover the slight bulge of his crotch (so much for not looking). I smirk at him viciously behind his back, hating myself for somehow thinking that this time would be different, and this is how I first see our new arrival: out of the corner of my eye. By the time I have turned my full attention on him my mind and face and everything else are blank with shock and the realization that, unless my tragedy of a life has been illegally intercepted by some sort of Deus ex Machina, I had made one grave mistake when I decided to come down here.

He fucking _saw _me.

"You're… Sugiyama," the abomination says in that grotesquely cheerful voice of his, smiling at the kid in such a completely _genuine_ way that it takes everything I have not to leap forward and rip a hole in his fucking pretty face. "From the football team, right?"

"Uh… yeah," Sugiyama mutters—at least now I know his name—as he oh-so-subtly edges towards the door—now that someone else is involved he wants _out_, and is currently thanking whatever deity he owes his allegiance to that I had refused to sex him up any further. Another thought process I'm very familiar with. "Takaishi… right? Takaishi Takeru?"

_Takaishi Takeru._

I can't help but flinch, betraying that shameful, pathetic part of myself that I've worked far too hard to bury—the side of me that jumps every time I hear his name, defying every ounce of reason I have in my body. I am staring at the floor, keeping up my indifferent, invisible charade with everything I have in me, but today it seems not to be enough; a dizzy spell hits me and I have to grab hold of a sink to steady myself. Takeru glances my way—I can feel his eyes on me, even with the ferocity with which I am ignoring him—and my fingers tighten. Involuntarily?

This is shit. This is such _shit_. For more than a year I've been avoiding him, trying my very best to keep _him_ and _this_ separate, but here he is standing between me and one of my fucking… _customers_. Not that he isn't usually—this comes to me in a flash and I feel myself shiver with the realization—but my personal demons have never before been so literal.

God _dammit_.

"I should… um… go," I hear Sugiyama say, and I look up as the door creaks open—his eyes meet mine just as I remind myself that I'll probably never see him again and I am jolted to the bone. I had expected to see shame—embarrassment—perhaps even a raunchy grin if this kid were the class clown type.

Not jealousy.

And it is then that my mind and my heart and everything comes to a stop, as I realize that Takeru has not moved and neither have I.

He thinks—

The fact that the very thought can arouse me makes me grit my teeth and close my eyes as I sink slowly to the floor. I'm pathetic. I'm worse than pathetic; I'm as low as a worm. As low as the grime that is slick and cold beneath my fingers.

I am still shaking.

"What the hell…"

It's Takeru. Takeru is speaking. To me. I lift my head up and just barely manage to meet his gaze. My body feels so heavy.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

I stare at him for a moment before I realize he expects me to answer; I feel slow and tongue-tied and so, so fucking horny. It's not fair. He can't just start talking to me like this. It's been too long… "What… what the hell are _you_ doing in _here_…?"

My voice doesn't sound right. Nothing sounds right, nothing feels right; it's not just his presence, something is genuinely wrong with me. The edges of panic grip my chest as he answers, just a touch of a sneer discoloring his sweet, cheerful voice. "I'm not the one sneaking around after school where he doesn't belong."

Asshole. "It has nothing to do with you."

He snorts derisively, a noise I have never heard him make. I find myself watching his eyes; they are startlingly blue even in this thin light—focused exclusively on the sink farthest from the one I am crouching under. "It does if my teammates are _distracted _while we're running drills for the finals."

It's as if he's out-and-out called me a slut. A goddamn fucking _whore_. I lean my head against the icy cold of the sink and close my eyes to clear my swimming vision; I wonder briefly if I might be dreaming. Takeru only talks to me in my dreams. But no—for all my nausea and the splitting headache that has come out of nowhere, this is too real. Too consequential. Dreams—my dreams, anyway—don't operate on the laws of cause and effect like reality does.

What the hell caused this?

"… Hey." His voice sounds louder—closer. I open my eyes and launch myself backward in a spurt of movement when I find him standing directly in front of me. The back of my head connects with the sink and I wince; the storm in my head has developed into a hurricane. Fuck. _Fuck. _He's peering down at me uncertainly, scratching the back of his head in a painfully familiar gesture. "What's wrong with you?"

I leer up at him, trying and failing to intimidate him. "Why the fuck… do _you_ care?"

I sound terrible—I know it, and so does he. He inches back a bit, his jaw jutting in a way that makes him look peculiarly like his brother. It doesn't suit him. "I'm not just going to leave you here if you're about to… like… up and die or something…"

I suppose Takeru will never change. He's still such a goddamn _nice guy_ even in these circumstances. Even with me. I let out a low but oddly contented giggle at the weirdness of this whole situation. "… Me? Something wrong with me? When has there _ever_… been something _right_… with me…"

"Don't be an ass." He's kneeling in front of me now, his uncertain, damnably beautiful face no more than a foot from mine. All too suddenly. It's been so long… "If you're sick, then—"

"Your uniform's gonna get dirty," I murmur, my eyes on his folded legs, snug against the grimy linoleum. "It's gonna…"

And then, through some massive lapse in judgment, I reach out and touch his knee. It's tiny, just a brush of my fingertips, but he jumps back as if he's been burned, stumbling as he scrambles to get to his feet. His face is twisted—it should make him ugly, but it doesn't. It couldn't. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

I stare up at him. My hand is still outstretched. "I… I didn't…"

"Like _hell_ you didn't!" His voice cracks mid-sentence—I can see his fists shaking. Such a violent reaction… "What… God, what the fuck is wrong with you? All those rumors… I thought they were just being blown out of proportion; I thought it was something else entirely… but…" His lip curls. "It's all true, isn't it? Everything the girls say about you, everything the guys…" He trails off. His fists are still shaking. "And that whole thing last year with… with that guy Takemura…"

"He never offered me money," I say quietly, and my mind is somehow lucid, just for that moment; I don't know if I'm imagining it or not, but Takeru's face has softened somehow, and his eyes… "Something like that… I wouldn't…"

And it's gone. My head is as cloudy as it was before and Takeru's face has closed up; he's not looking at me anymore, not even in anger, and I want almost to reach out and touch him again, even if he'll recoil in disgust. _Please, just look at me…_

"I…" I blink my eyes to clear my blurring vision; his jaw has set, he looks focused, determined… like he's come to some sort of mental consensus. "I should get back to practice." He spares me a passing glance and I can hardly bear to look at him; his face is so noncommittal, as if he's deliberately denying everything that came to pass between us that fucking summer. Denying _me_. "If you're really not sick, then…"

God. Oh, God, he's turned to leave—the minute he steps foot outside he'll forget me; I'll once again be as far outside Takaishi Takeru's social spectrum as it's possible to be. Before I quite know what I'm doing I'm stumbling to my feet, uttering a choked "No…"

He half-turns, his expression unreadable, but that single syllable was one too much for me; My insides curdle and my stomach gives one final, explosive lurch; I've barely made it to a toilet before my insides empty into the porcelain bowl, my hands clammy and trembling as they clutch its shiny sides.

"Shit…!" Takeru is behind me, staring wide-eyed into the stall; I can see him leaning against it out of the corner of my eye. "Shit, are you…?"

"I'm fine," I try to say—how hard can it be to say two words?—but as I try to speak my throat constricts and I retch, this time bringing up nothing; I have nothing left to throw up. I swallow hard and manage to spit out a sentence: "I'm… I'm okay… I think…"

He's quiet. I've half-collapsed onto the toilet bowl with my head buried in my arms, shaking, so I can't quite see his face—so much for my brave words—but I can feel his gaze on my back as I breathe slowly in and out, concentrating on the worth of every breath. A minute—two minutes pass; neither of us says a word, and I've begun to get nervous—I wonder what the look on his face could possibly read, whether he's still even here… whether I'm just sitting here by myself staring at my reflection like a sad, pathetic moron… but the light, hesitant touch on my shoulder tells me otherwise; I tense, scarcely able to believe it—Takaishi Takeru, the real Takaishi Takeru, not some sick, twisted manifestation present only in my dreams, is touching me—but I don't dare move. His fingers are still gracing my shoulder—I can feel them trembling through my uniform, but they have yet to move.

"I'm going to…" He pauses, swallowing deeply, before continuing: "… I'm taking you to the nurse's office."

"You don't have to…" My voice trails off, not substantial enough to finish a sentence. "I'm not—"

"You just threw up." The fingers on my shoulder tighten. He's decided now—I know that tone to his voice. It's the reason why I so often doubted my leadership position—secretly, of course—when he was around. Way back when. "Come on. Get up."

I can't refuse him—especially with his fingers beginning to dig into my shoulder, the only sign that this whole situation is fazing him at all—so I dutifully rise to my feet, my knees and hands and everything shaking in response to the movement, and I feel…

Fuck. This isn't good.


	2. Chapter 2

[THIS STORY IS SO TRASHY. :D I HAVE SO MUCH FUN WRITING IT. It's the kind of thing that it makes me cringe to write but that I love to read. :D I don't know if it's an _actual _technical mishap or not, but I may have made it seem in the first chapter as if Takeru is wearing his school uniform. He's not; he's wearing sweats and his basketball uniform. _Daisuke _is wearing his school uniform. :D … That was bothering me. Enjoy; there's some actual gay in this chapter (WHOA SHIT!).

**QUEERER THINGS**

**Part Two**

I could go to the nurse's office. I _should_. It would be easy—she knows me. Everyone in this school knows me. Just stick my head in, go "this kid fainted in the bathroom," deny I knew him, deny I knew what caused it, and leave. And then I'd be free.

At least for a little while.

But seeing Daisuke crumple—just _crumple_ into a faint, the toilet breaking his fall so that he looked like a broken doll, his head landing on the side of the bowl with a sickening thunk—my head goes absolutely blank. I don't know how long it takes for the sight of his face, flushed with fever as he struggles for breath, to sink in, but when it does I feel myself sink into a crouch and utter a whispered "fuck."

I have no clue what to do.

I know what I _should_ do. He's feverish and unconscious; I've taken first-aid. I know how to help a sick person. But nothing, unfortunately, that can be done without touching him. And I really, really don't want to touch him.

I haven't touched him—really touched him—for the last year and a half. That thing on the shoulder… that was nothing, of course, just to get his attention… and I had felt how warm he was even through his shirt and the jacket of his uniform…

And what if he wakes up? I mean, he doesn't look like he's going to anytime soon. He looks pretty fucking bad. But if he does, and he feels my hands on him… what will he do?

What will _I _do?

I must have crouched there and dithered for close to five minutes, watching his face contort with effort as his breath rattles on its way in and out; I might not ever have moved if the door hadn't opened.

I spring to my feet and pull the door shut as one kid, two, enter the room, talking loudly as they do so. My heart leaps into my throat as first I recognize their voices then realize they are talking about _me_.

"… So I told Kanzaki I didn't know where the fuck Takaishi was, and that if he didn't get his ass back to practice soon we'd have to cancel, since it's not like we can run drills without a captain. Not this close to the fucking finals." It's Mitarashi, my assistant captain on the basketball team. He's not a terribly decent human being. And if I'm not mistaken, the other kid has to be—

"But do you know where he is, senpai? Really?" Hirasawa, a first-year student who's practically attached to Mitarashi at the hip. He's on the team, too, if just barely.

"Hell no." I hear the tinny sound of Mitarashi spitting into a sink and grimace. Disgusting. "He just up and _disappears_ during our break." There's a pause during which I see Hirasawa's feet shift uncomfortably. "It's not like him."

"Umm…" Hirasawa shifts again, coming a little closer to our stall, and I realize with a sickening rush of panic that they won't take much longer to notice Daisuke passed out on the ground, if they haven't already, and my legs along with him… it's a little pathetic, I think, that it's this revelation that causes me to gather him into my arms, almost without thinking about it, and climb onto the toilet seat, crouching there as I hope to God that neither of them heard or saw me.

"What?" I hear the click of a lighter and the distinct smell of a cigarette wafts in from under the stall door. I have to suppress a groan; I've been trying to catch Mitarashi smoking for months, and now that I have I can't possibly get him for it…

"Um… well, it's stupid," Hirasawa says, his voice growing quiet in his hesitation. "But…"

"Out with it," Mitarashi says impatiently.

"Um… I heard one of the starters say he saw that second-year kid wandering around. You know… that… um…" He swallows audibly. "Motomiya Daisuke."

Every muscle in my body tightens—with rage or anxiety or something else, I don't know. Mitarashi doesn't say anything, but I've already become hyper-alert of everything—including, at last, the boy who has somehow ended up in my arms, his head lolling against my neck as his eyelashes flutter fretfully at my collarbone. His bare skin is hot to the touch—so indescribably hot that, for just a moment, I find myself struggling for breath as genuinely as he is—

"So what?" Mitarashi says finally. His voice is cold and quiet as I have never quite heard it before. "You calling Takaishi a faggot or something?"

"No!" There's a note of hysteria in his voice, but not for my sake. It's almost sad how he's nearly gone to pieces at the first inkling of disapproval from his idol. "No, o-of course I'm not—I mean—I was just repeating what they—"

"So you heard some jerk-offs talking shit about our captain and decided to believe them?" Mitarashi says, still quietly, in what might actually be an attempt to defend me. I can't quite believe it. Hirasawa has begun to babble again, almost incoherently; I can tell from his tone that he's on the verge of bursting into tears.

"Are you just going to believe anything anyone tells you?" Mitarashi asks him, his voice sailing easily over Hirasawa's noise.

"N-No—I wouldn't—they didn't say—I was just thinking—" Hirasawa's voice warbles dangerously. "—b-because they were friends in middle school—"

You could have heard a pin drop. I grip Daisuke even tighter, my fingers digging into the folds of his uniform—which he must feel on some level, as he lets out a whisper of a sigh and shifts in my arms, his head nestling further into my neck. I nearly fall off the toilet. I feel like I'm going to die—which, honestly, is a decent alternative to what would happen if the two of them find me like this. Of course—Hirasawa went to our middle school. Hirasawa probably knew who I was then, even if I hadn't had the slightest idea he existed.

Fuck.

"Really?" Mitarashi says, sounding far more interested than he's ever sounded in anything. "You sure?"

"Y-Yeah… at least, he hung out with Takaishi-senpai and Yagami Hikari-senpai a lot—Motomiya Daisuke did," Hirasawa says, his voice growing a little stronger. "He was… you know… normal then, I think."

"Oh." I can hear the smirk in Mitarashi's voice. "So they dumped him when they found out he sucked cock, huh?"

Hirasawa lets out a breathy giggle. "I—I guess."

I don't realize how angry I am until I hear my own teeth grinding. For him just to _assume_, to say things about us like that without knowing _anything_… he doesn't know anything about Daisuke or even me, really, or that summer—

"Do you hear something?"

"I… I don't know… maybe…? Like what?"

"I don't know… I just thought I heard a noise…"

I freeze. Daisuke shifts in my arms again, but I pay him no mind, positive the noise is my own fault, until a light moan escapes his lips and he begins to stir. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_, this isn't happening. There's no possible way I can cover his mouth without dropping him, and even if could… touching his lips like that…

_Fuck_. They're going to catch us, both of them, and there's no possible way I can explain this away—

"Probably nothing. This is an old bathroom," Mitarashi says dismissively, and I thank every deity I can think of for his short attention span. He stamps out his cigarette butt on the grimy floor with one of his feet. "But we should get back to practice anyway. God knows Takaishi'll bitch at us if he came back, even if he's the one who was AWOL…"

Hirasawa makes some obligatory comment, but I barely hear him; they're _leaving_. They won't catch me in here with the school slut in my arms; I won't have to suffer the scrutiny of the entire student body as I build myself back up from what would have definitely been nothing but a terrible, terribly misunderstanding. It's disgusting how relieved I am. The minute the door clicks shut behind Hirasawa's hand-me-down gym shoes I let out a whoosh of breath I hadn't known I'd been holding; I'm going to walk away from this. Everything will be all right.

Until I feel the touch of his fingertips, feather-light against my cheek.

I'm so surprised I don't move a muscle—for a second. Then my reflexes kick in and I see rather than feel myself shove him against the stall door. He almost _crumples_ again—almost—but manages somehow to stay on his feet despite his trembling legs. His eyes are open, but barely; he looks confused and disoriented—I would feel bad for treating him like this if he wasn't looking at me. And looking at me.

I can't stand him looking at me.

"What?" I say defiantly, sitting back on the toilet seat—as far away from him as I can get. "You—you fainted—and these guys I knew came in, and I couldn't let them…"

I trail off—'I couldn't let them see me with you' is too harsh, too conceited, even for me—but he doesn't seem to be listening; his eyes drop to the floor and he begins to nod, slowly, as if coming to an agreement with himself.

"This," he says, his voice hoarse but certain, "is a dream."

_What?_ I stare at him—still horrified, still feeling sick to my stomach, but, incredibly, beginning to calm down. Slowly. "A dream?"

"Has to be," he says, looking up and down and all around—before his eyes settle, once again, on me. I shrink back a little, distinctly ashamed of myself even as I do so. "You wouldn't have touched me otherwise. You wouldn't still be here."

My entire body seems to be relaxing under the power of his words, even as I remain aware that this, the two of us talking to one another, face-to-face, is very much reality, even if I had never imagined that it would happen again, even in the darkest of my nightmares. The room seems to be getting steadily hotter, has been ever since I walked in here, and I realize, impossibly, _impossibly_, that I'm blushing—and the shame begins to curdle in my gut anew. "… Oh."

Does it surprise me that he still dreams about me? I don't know.

"You're gonna need to go soon… right?" He says dully, almost methodically, and I wonder how many times a meeting just like this one has happened in the safe confines of his head. He looks flushed, too, although it many very well be just from his illness. I can't really tell. "You always leave. At the end."

"Yes… yes!" I say, getting shakily to my feet. It dawns on me that _he's_ the one giving me a way out, and I can't even begin to fathom how weird this day has become. "I have… um… I have practice… basketball…"

I lurch forward, intending to get past him, to escape back into the safety of the ordinary, the mundane, but he reaches out and grabs me by the wrist. "Wait." His grip isn't strong—it couldn't be, the condition he's in—but the very moment he touches me I can't seem to move. _I'm so close… _"Just one thing before you leave."

"But…" I swallow hard, willing him to let go of me but unable to pull away. "I need to go… practice…"

"You can wait." He steps towards me—practically staggers into me is more like it, and I can't help the low gasp I let out when his body touches mine—I can tell how dizzy he is, how plain unwell, just by looking into his eyes, but there's something more… "I know you can wait. This is my dream… after all…"

I know what he's going to do. I knew the minute he touched my arm—perhaps even the minute I hid him from my teammates—but I couldn't stop it, _any_ of it, and as Daisuke's lips touch mine I feel almost as if this is karma at hand, giving me what I deserve for my last two years of perfect, rose-colored high school life.

It's so _hot_—his rush of breath, his skin, his lips. I don't think I've ever _felt_ so much in my entire life—his hands pressed almost delicately to the sides of my face, the sweat that's breaking out on my forehead, the very movement of the air around us. It's overwhelming. It takes another moment to realize that I'm kissing him back—clumsily but with certainty, as he pushes me against the side of the stall. I can barely breathe. My senses are completely overwhelmed.

Daisuke pulls away momentarily, our noses touching and our breath intermingling, but I kiss him again; I can't stand it. I need something to hold on to. His breath hitches and he kisses me back, harder; his fingernails dig into the side of my face as his other hand slides down my neck to finger the zipper of my basketball hoodie.

I almost hesitate—almost. But stopping him isn't an option anymore. I can do nothing but stand there with my eyes closed, attached desperately to his mouth, as he slides the zipper down slowly, painstakingly, and I shiver despite the heat.

It occurs to me somehow that this isn't exactly fair.

I feel the tips of his fingers brush my stomach—they travel down, down, achingly gently, and rest momentarily on the waistband of my sweatpants. My heart is slamming violently in my chest; I have to get him to stop—I _need_ to—but my tongue is otherwise occupied and my body seems almost to lean into his touch, as his hand slips beneath the waistbands of my sweats and my boxers and… and…

There are tears in my eyes and my blush is hot and thick and courses across my skin, all-encompassing; I could hardly move if I tried for the shaking. I feel disgusting. This is disgusting, this feeling; it's _vile_ and _sickening_ and I can't help but crave it, the heaving in my chest and the curling heat in my gut. I don't want this. I _can't_ want this, not ever, or the last two years of my life will have been for nothing.

Daisuke breaks the kiss again, inhaling with a soft, breathy sound that; I can't seem to identify with the harsh pounding in my ears. Wordless protest escapes my lips, desperate sounds that I can't quite imagine myself making, but he does _something _with his fingers—something that makes my knees buckle and shocks me into silence.

"Takeru," he murmurs in my ear. Everything stops—my heart, the world, the air around us. "Takeru," he says again, and there's an edge to his voice that sets my hair on end, "touch me. Please."

It's as if he's said the magic word. My name on his lips. His skin is hot and smooth and perfect under my fingers; my knee slides between his legs and the moan he lets out is electric; we're leaning against each other now, holding each other up as his fingers curl against me and his name repeats over and over again in my head: _Daisuke, Daisuke, Daisuke, Daisuke_. I'm kissing the side of his neck, clumsily, harshly, and with every touch he stiffens ever so slightly, as if he's not quite expecting it. He feels small in my arms, but I can feel the muscles coursing under his skin. "Daisuke," I murmur in a broken whisper, sinking my teeth into his neck; "Daisuke… Daisuke…"

"Aah," he moans, curling up against me—

And then it's over.


	3. Chapter 3

[This one's a little shorter. I was going to make it longer, but it didn't seem necessary... so. Also! I am well aware that they're in a Japanese high school and that Japanese high school students don't switch classrooms and they have the same classmates for every class and blah blah blah. Whatever. I'm writing the rest of this in an Americanized style, so it makes sense for the school to fit that model. And it's my story, shut up.

**QUEERER THINGS**

**Part Three**

It's first period, a week later, and I'm trying my very hardest to ignore the stares and whispers and nervous giggles, I really am, but I don't think it's working.

When I first walked in this morning and saw people staring at me, just outright _gaping_, without any pretense or anything, a rush of panic jolted me to the core. I felt certain that Takeru had started some ugly rumor about me while I was gone. Or had he—and my stomach nearly imploded into itself at the thought—somehow found out that I… that I still… it was almost too much to bear. Especially after fainting in front of him last week—it's just like me to ruin the one occasion I've had to talk to him in nearly two years. And waking up curled up in the same stall of that same bathroom, with a huge bump on my head and a headache that made my vision throb—I don't know what horrified me more, the fact that Takeru had just left me there or the supremely physical evidence that I had more than enjoyed my latest dream about him. I couldn't imagine Takeru just _leaving_ me there, as sick as I was; maybe he really had been trying to help me when I… when I started doing whatever people did when they were having sex dreams… or bizarrely lucid make-out handjob dreams, as it were. Maybe he was so revolted that he just ran out… and maybe he…

But no (as I heard a first-year girl tell her friends loudly while I was clearly in earshot), some moron just started a rumor about me leaving school to do some gay porno in America. Fucking retards. In any case, a week of alternately sleeping and lying in bed thinking drowsily about Takeru hasn't done wonders for my reputation—not that anything could, at this point. But it hasn't been this bad since—since last year, I guess, when all this shit about me came out into the open and… that Takeyama guy…

That was bad.

_But this isn't like that_, my head tells me, gently, like a fucking psychologist soothing a frazzled patient. I have become my own shrink. No, this isn't that kind of _bad_—the bad that breeds sudden silences in rooms you've just walked into, when the disbelief and mockery and utter _disgust_is so thick in the air that you can barely find room to breathe. This is, at its core, nothing more than an everyday, run-of-the-mill high school rumor gone awry. But it's fucking annoying, all right, head? I can be pissed if I want to. I owe myself that.

And these whispers aren't much better than the silence, if I have to compare. Silence is deafening in its own right—it cuts right into your chest when people abruptly stop communicating and you know it's_because of you_—but whispers are incessant, and the sound twists in and around itself until any semblance of language disappears and it becomes this_hissing_ that just won't stop—

I barely feel a girl brush me as she chatters away to one of her friends, but I definitely hear her shrill gasp, and the scrape of metal against stone as she backs into the desk next to mine. I'm not really thinking, but I'm pissed, and before I know it the words spill out of my mouth like poison:

"What the fuck are _you_ scared of?"

You couldn't have heard a pin drop—I won't give myself that much credit. But I can feel the eyes on me, and this dumb girl's standing there staring at me like I sprouted a second head and it spoke to her, and I swear I'm about to fucking _snap_ and walk out or start screaming or _something_, until I hear the laugh.

It's faint—a barely audible smirk—but I hear it loud and clear, and I just freeze up. She must be one of dumb girl's friends, because she turns away from me to greet her, as does half the class—she's popular, of course. She always has been. Our eyes meet for a second—just enough to establish contact, not anything else—and then I turn away, disinterested and pretending I don't know the big brown eyes and deceptively gentle laugh better than anyone else in here.

I feel sick.

* * *

By lunchtime the whispering's eased off a bit, although I'm still seeing people staring at me out of the corners of my eyes, but by now I'm used to it and I don't give a fuck and there's only one thought really occupying my mind—that of where the hell Takeru is, and why I haven't so much as seen him all day.

I know he's at school. Their basketball finals are in… like… two days—even Takaishi Takeru would get his ass kicked out of the game if he didn't come to school the week of. And I know I only have one class with him aside from lunch, and that one class isn't until last period, but even in the vast expanse of the cafeteria he's nowhere to be found. And I would think I'm a little better than the average sorry bastard at locating him, even from some half-broken table in the very corner.

I'm probably pushing it a bit by looking for him right now. It's not like we're on better terms than we were a couple of weeks ago—in fact, he probably has even better reasons to pretend I don't exist. It's not like we can ever be friends again. But it's that stupid, stubborn side to me that wants… that _aches_ to see him just once, to gauge his reaction to me. To see how we stand, when I should really just sever the connection between us altogether. I've always been like this, unable to give up on something even when everything would be so much easier if I could.

It was one of the things Takeru and I always fought about, right from the beginning.

He isn't fucking in here. I lower my head onto my arms, my eyelids drooping dangerously as I stare blankly at the corner of the cafeteria opposite. I'm so tired. It's hard to come back to school after being sick a week; it's hard to sit up and pay attention when you've been lying in bed for so long, and I almost forget Takeru as my eyes close and everything gets foggy…

"Hey."

Fuck. I force my eyes open and look up at… at whoever the fuck's talking to me; I don't even know this kid. Kids. There are three of them, the two slightly shorter ones flanking the one who spoke to me like something out of a goddamn after-school special. I stare them down—straight guys have trouble looking gay guys in the eye. I don't remember where I read that, but it's true—the middle guy's eyes flicker briefly from side to side, then down, to rest on the school lunch I've been picking apart.

He regrets walking up to me. I hold back a grin and try to look as bored as possible—not hard, as tired as I am. "Yeah?"

"Hey… um…" He rubs the back of his head. It occurs to me that these are pretty tough-looking kids. Not dangerous loner types or potential gang members, not quite, but enough to cause a good amount of shit without getting back what's coming to them. The fact that I make a kid like this feel uncomfortable… that makes me a feel a little better. Not much, but a little. "We were just wondering… you know… how you got out."

I stare at him. What the fuck is he talking about? "'How I got out'?"

"Yeah!" One of the kids bursts out—the one on the left. He's not quite as hardboiled as the kid in the center—probably a freshman. "We got this friend, see—"

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," I say, cutting him off. I can't deal with this shit right now. I'm so tired… so tired I can't stand it…

"Listen, asshole," the kid in the middle says brusquely. He seems to have gained back some of his confidence. "We don't like the idea of asking a queer like you for help, either, but you could at least—"

"He's not gonna help you with anything." The voice is cool and hard and sends a current of ice through me that I'm not quite expecting. Although he's in my plain sight I can't quite bring myself to look at him. He isn't the kind of person the rule seems to work on. He slides casually through a gap between the kid in the middle and the one who hasn't yet spoken and leans against my table with his hands in his pockets, smirking maliciously at me. My gaze, still unable to meet his, slides down to my knees, where my hands grasp helplessly at my pant legs. Fuck.

"Mitarashi," the central kid says. The surprise is tangible in his voice, and I don't blame him; Mitarashi Hokuto is not the kind of guy that just comes waltzing up to guys like them or a loser like me. He doesn't need to. Vice-captain of the basketball team and one of the most sought-after guys at this school—it's hard to find a girl here he hasn't done _something_ to—he's one of those few people here who seem to float on air. You know the type—he's untouchable.

And I've been undeniably attracted to him ever since I first laid eyes on him.

It's not something I'm proud of. Actually, I try to crush it into oblivion every time I happen to see him and it rears its ugly head—he's not a kid someone like me needs to get mixed up with. He scares the shit out of me, if I'm going to be honest with myself. Despite his popularity, there's something genuinely dangerous about him that I can't quite put my finger on.

And as similar as my reactions are to the two of them, this is completely separate from what I feel for Takeru—if Takeru is sunshine and light, Mitarashi is dark and sensual. I'm not in love with him. I know I'm not, but it's unnerving how much I'm drawn to him—even more so since I've never so much as spoken to him, and he's quite outspoken in his contempt for me. But always to other people, and always in large crowds when I've just happened to be close enough to hear.

What game is he playing…?

"Isn't that right, faggot?" he says softly, and I barely flinch at the slur. "I don't think your advice is going to help their friend very much. Unless he wants to sleep his way out of whatever shit he's gotten himself into—"

"Hey," the middle kid says, as a warning—not that it really means anything. There's no one who would bet Mitarashi couldn't beat him up if he wanted to. And it's clear whose side they're on—they all look abashed and sick to their stomachs, as if they deeply regret ever coming over here. Of _course_ that was how I did it. Whatever the fuck 'it' is. Slowly, they slink away with their hands shoved into their pockets—acting extra,_extra_ tough to make up for the discrepancy. Morons. Although I kind of admire the courage it must have taken to come up and talk to me.

I'm fucking pathetic, aren't I? It's almost funny.

Mitarashi, though, has no intention of just walking away, and it's not until he sits nonchalantly next to me that I realize, incredibly, that _no one_ is watching; no one in this whole goddamn cafeteria is seeing history in the making here: this Adonis talking to the gay kid. In public. Will wonders never cease.

I've never been this close to him before.

He leans in conspiratorially, and if it weren't for the fact that I'm frozen solid or for the horrifying smirk on his face I would almost be excited. I'm getting a whiff of something, something that's on him—whether it's a cologne or just good old-fashioned pheromones, I can't tell. It's intoxicating.

"Motomiya Daisuke," he says, and my stomach clenches with desire. And fear. "That's your name, isn't it?"

I practically have to force my jaw open to answer him. "So what if it is?"

My voice comes out shaky and high-pitched—and he laughs, his pretty mouth splitting into a feral grin. Whatever he wants with me is going just the way he planned it. "Oooh. Sassy, aren't you?"

My face burns and I clutch even more tightly at my pant legs. I'm beginning to sweat. "What do you want?"

"Not much." He drums his fingers nonchalantly on the table. "There's just something that's been bothering me, and I thought you might be able to help me out."

Of course it's something about those goddamn rumors. The whole fucking school's been talking about me enough; it makes sense that someone would want to get his story straight. I bet his whole lunch table elected him to waltz over here and pump me for answers; sure, no one's watching us, but it's not like he couldn't get them all to ignore what's going on so I'd open up more. He probably thinks that I'm starved for attention (which is bullshit); that he's just so attractive that I'd be a good little faggot and tell him whatever he wanted to know (which isn't so far from the truth, fine, but I'm not _so_ pathetic that I'd set myself up for my own destruction). Fuck that. Fuck all of this. My exhaustion has vanished without a trace; my veins are coursing with what could only be adrenaline fueled by anger and frustration and desire, and it's continuing to build, as it has been, quietly, all day. I feel like I'm about to snap. "… Yeah? What?"

"Well, I was just wondering," he murmurs, leaning his chin on one of his fists. His eyes are sparkling. "But how many times do you think you've sucked Takaishi's cock?"


	4. Chapter 4

[Grievance #1: I am sorry, sorry, _sorry _that this chapter is so short, but I honestly couldn't think of any way to expand it without it being completely unnecessary. It packs a pretty good melodramatic wallop on its own, though, so I feel comfortable devoting chapter _five _to dealing with the fallout of what happens in this one in its entirety.

Grievance #2: AHAHAHA. How about that hiatus?

I can't even blame this on school or anything, considering an entire summer break straddled the gap between the last update and this one. Honestly, I lost interest in fanfiction for a while; I was concentrating on my own original stuff, and I only even thought about this story and the other ones I'm working on briefly over that break. But now I think I'm back on the bandwagon, and I'm at least going to work with this story for as long as I feel like it. This, in my opinion, is a really fun chapter, and I feel like I've actually really improved as a writer in the interim, so enjoy this one to the best of your ability. Hopefully the updates will be less sporadic in the months to come.

P.S. – Mitarashi Hokuto is an original character, in case it's not completely obvious. I had someone thinking he was Ken for some reason, and he's definitely not. I don't know if Ken's even going to show up in this, as much as he should be all over it. … Um. I know original characters are generally a no-no, but I feel like I'm breaking all the conventions with Mitarashi, and—admittedly—he's an _incredibly_ fun character to write and read (hopefully). Maybe you'll all agree by the end of this chapter.]

**QUEERER THINGS**

**Part Four**

I decide to eat lunch in an empty classroom on the second floor. Hikari comes with me. She doesn't ask questions—she never really does, which over time has given me the impression that she can read my mind. But every time I turn my back, I feel her eyes on me. Probing.

I know she's disappointed in me. Were she the type to criticize, she would come out and say it—that I need to confront my problems rather than just run away from them, the way Taichi always taught her to. And me as well, I guess. But she can't understand, because I'm not about to tell her—that the minute I saw Daisuke in the hallway I bolted, and that I deemed to spend the lunch hour in here rather than the cafeteria because I can't quite handle getting another glimpse of him.

She can't understand. She wouldn't be able to even if I told her. I don't know how much she knows about what happened between us that summer—probably more than I think she does—but this isn't just something I can talk about. Or even think about.

But even as I repeat this thought to myself over and over, like a mantra, it's Daisuke's face I'm seeing—his unbridled wonder on the day I met him, introduced as he had been to a whole new world beyond our own; his grin on the day we entered middle school, when he had reached over and squeezed my hand and before I knew what I was doing I had squeezed back; the set to his jaw that had persisted all through our first year of high school, during which he almost succeeded in blending entirely into the background until _that _happened. His eyes a week ago. The slump of his shoulders this morning, as I had caught sight of him leaning against his locker, his eyes closed wearily as he rested his head against the cool metal of the door. Like an erratic slide show, these images play over and over again before my eyes, coming thicker and faster as time ticks slowly by. I rub my temples in a weak attempt to clear my head, but my memories have other ideas. It's as if my body is slowly waking up to truth—as much as my heart cringes to admit it—after two long years of half-hearted reprieve.

"Takeru," Hikari says quietly.

I shake my head quietly from side to side. I'm trying as hard as I can not to deal with this right now.

"Takeru, this isn't like you," she says, pressing on. I suppose she's sick of dealing with my shit. I would be, too. "You haven't acted like this in… well, in a while."

"Like what?" I say hoarsely.

"Shutting me out," she snaps. "Sitting there and agonizing over something that you won't even talk about. What would your brother think?"

"My brother," I say, "might just understand." But I don't want to fight with her. I sigh, pushing my lunch well away from me, and lay my head gently on my arms, watching the light stream through the cracked-open door into the dim classroom. "It's nothing, Hikari, really. I just have a headache."

"Sure," she says. Followed by a silence so thick I feel myself struggling to breathe through it. The only audible sound is her fingers rapping lightly on the desk, spelling out the rhythm to a recently popular song. I turn my head and bury it fully into my arms, welcoming the darkness that accompanies the motion. I will get through this. This is nothing but a brief, undesirable period in my life. Everyone has them. I _will_ get through this.

"Daisuke came back to school today," Hikari says.

I jerk my head up abruptly. It's been so long since she's mentioned him—since I've heard his name anywhere but in the back of my head or in whispers echoing around the hallways—that I forget to hide my surprise. Not that she would have bought it anyway. She _knows_. She must know. "… Oh."

"He's been gone for a while," she says in that same nonchalant voice, picking casually at some rice in a bowl on her lunch tray. "I don't know if you noticed. Nobody really knows why he was gone, but there are _plenty _of rumors. He's in my first period class."

I don't say anything.

"Arisa accidentally bumped him this morning, and you should have _seen_ the look on her face." Hikari lets out a chuckle. "He just_ snapped_ at her—all, 'what the fuck are _you _scared of?' It's been a while since something interesting like that's happened in class."

I don't know where she's going with this. She must know something. Somehow. I gave that away myself—the moment she started talking about him and I didn't lash out, like I did every time, every _fucking _time last year she would bring up his name. It was more frequently in the early months, and then less and less, until we hadn't talked about him in months by the time that scandal erupted. But that's all ancient history.

I can't bring myself to look away. She's holding my gaze evenly, daring me to say something. If I look away I lose the game—I'll just end up giving myself away, and then everything will have to come out into the open, whether I want it to or not…

The door slams open all the way, ricocheting against the classroom wall with an ear-shattering clatter. Hikari and I both jump. "Takaishi-senpai!"

It's Hirasawa. He's panicky and breathing hard, as if he's sprinted the whole way here. "I f-finally found you… you have to come quick!"

I get to my feet. The light from the hallway streaming out from behind him gives the whole scene a surreal quality, as if I have until now been hidden away from the rest of reality. "Why? What's happened?"

"In the cafeteria…" He swallows, takes a deep breath. "Mitarashi-senpai… a-and that guy, Motomiya Daisuke… they just suddenly started beating the _shit _out of each other…"

The conjunction of those two names in one sentence has frozen me to the bone. It's Hikari who grabs my arm and pulls me to the doorway, giving Hirasawa a curt look as her fingers tighten around my wrist. "Let's go."

We sprint down the hallway, ignoring teachers and aides who yell asides about how running in the hallways in forbidden. Their voices distort, like the wail of a train passing by at full speed; we're going far too fast to adhere to their rules. Still, it takes far too long to arrive at the doors of the cafeteria, and once we do I find myself frozen up all over again, unable to reconcile with what I see happening in front of me.

There seems to be a path carved out from the corner of the cafeteria of upturned chairs, spilled lunches and a couple of tables shoved onto their sides, leading out to the middle of the room, where a space has opened up; for the amount of people in the room it's oddly silent, the weird quiet broken only by the squeaking of sneakers on the tile, the murmur of whispers rising up out of the crowd, and Daisuke's voice.

"_I'll fucking kill you!_" he screams. "_I'll rip your fucking throat out!_"

The grin splitting Mitarashi's face in half is monstrous; it sucks the breath out of me to see an expression that is such equal parts malice and ecstatic pleasure. "Well, _fuck_!" He yells, his voice echoing into the rafters. "Who knew you were so much _fun_?" He has a busted lip, but he doesn't seem to notice; Daisuke, too, is holding his side a little too consistently for it to be casual. The two are circling each other slowly, Daisuke's steps as clumsy as Mitarashi's are graceful. "I should have picked a fight with you _months _ago!"

"_Fuck_ you!" In two steps Daisuke has closed the gap between them and buried a fist in Mitarashi's stomach; Mitarashi, not expecting the blow, lets out a grunt and loses his balance; in another few seconds he's on his back, Daisuke straddling him, the front of Mitarashi's shirt balled up tight in his trembling fists. I hear a sharp intake of breath next to me: Hikari. But I can't look away.

"If you don't take it back I'll beat your face into a bloody fucking mess," Daisuke says quietly, restrainedly. His chest is heaving.

A series of high-pitched giggles erupt from Mitarashi as he pushes his dark hair out of his face; he can't seem to stop grinning. "What _are_ you doing, Daisuke-chan? Are you going to _take _me in front of all these people?"

Daisuke's shoulders are shaking; he lifts his fists up and slams Mitarashi's head against the linoleum with a resounding _smack_. I've never seen him look so angry.

"Oh, no, you wouldn't do that, would you?" Mitarashi says, his speech intermingled with bursts of manic giggling. "_Would you_? You probably like it up the ass yourself—"

Daisuke lets out a suppressed scream and punches Mitarashi so hard across the face that we hear his head hit the linoleum, but finally, _finally_, a teacher has arrived; as he yanks Daisuke up off of Mitarashi, the silence seems to break, suddenly everyone is clamoring to one another, shaking their heads and holding their hands to their mouths and saying "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," and I can feel Hikari's fingers tight around my wrist, but I still can't look away, watching as Mitarashi gets to his feet, still giggling, and grabs a chair by its back, the screech of metal against stone barely audible over the noise.

"_Daisuke_!" I scream, the sound ripping through my vocal cords before I can stop it, and his head snaps around as the teacher walks away, leaving him to wait for his punishment; his eyes widen and his lips have almost formed the first syllable of my name before Mitarashi slams the chair into the back of his head.

Daisuke falls forward. It happens fast, so much that no one seems to realize what has happened at first, but when Mitarashi lets the chair fall from his hands, the heavy weight of it clattering onto the floor with so much finality, the bubble seems to burst; there is a surge of noise all around us, the teacher spinning around and sprinting back towards the center of the cafeteria as he yells at the nearest students to get the nurse, get the nurse, and I can feel Hikari's hands, both of them, tight around my forearm, holding me back, and her voice beneath the wash of everything else: "Takeru, please, Takeru, calm down—_calm the fuck down_—"

Daisuke is the only thing that's still, his body curled into a semi-fetal position on the cold linoleum, his eyes closed, the tiling around his unmoving head already flecked with blood.

* * *

[Daisuke is not having a good week. This is… like… the second time in this short story that he's ended up unconscious for one reason or another. But no matter. Sorry again for the short chapter and the long hiatus, and I suppose I'll see you all again at some point. Hopefully in less than another six months. I mean, a year. I mean, a year and two months. … Shut up.]


End file.
